Category: College

The end of another summer holiday from teaching and it was time for the annual gettogether. BBQ in our garden.

It took a while to get ready. New turf as the old grass was ruined. Take down old shed and build new one. Repairs to decking etc etc, clean pond and count fish (60).

We don’t have a huge garden so it was a bit of a squeeze at times. It was great to spend some time with family, friends and work colleagues. Two of them are the leaving the country shortly and so it will be a while before I see them again.

About three weeks ago I bought a log flume from a seller on Ebay. It was definitely an impulse buy. The auction was due to end one evening and I put in a cheeky bid expecting it to be declined and woke up the next day to find I was the new owner of a used log flume for £120.

When I told my colleague at work he also temporarily lost his sanity and bought a roller coaster car from the same seller based in Margate. These things really don’t come up for sale very often and we both felt we could create some crazy projects around VR using these.

After some difficult communication with the seller, we finally departed Slough on Sunday at 8.00am to drive the 100+ miles to Margate to collect both items.

It was a cold day with snow on the ground but we made good time and arrived around 10.30am in my colleagues van. The seller was still on holiday in the U.S but his colleagues were on hand to show us the items. It immediately became clear these were very large and very heavy requiring 4 or more people to lift and there were two of us. After an hour and half of lifting, winches, ratchet straps and to be honest Chris’s lifting ability more than mine, we managed to get the rollercoaster in the back of the van and turned our attention to the log flume. It was quickly obvious the log flume was too big and heavy to fit in the van with the rollercoaster. I remembered the seller was also offering some smaller log flumes for the same value and after a quick discussion it was agreed we would take one of these instead and again loaded in the van after some time and effort.

By this point it was early afternoon. Chris’s van has no heating and after loading these items we were cold and thirsty. We were told of an indoor market called the Old Kent Market where we could get some refreshments and walked around the corner to see what they had to offer. Its a fantastic little indoor market with lots of character offering food and beverages and some small indoor market stalls. We had a lovely coffee and warmed up then visited a couple of the antique shops nearby before making the 2 hour journey home in the fresh snow.

The last picture shows my log flume hidden in our server room at work after loading into the lift and taking it up to the first floor.